No Shame November! We're going to look into the pop culture that society tells us we shouldn't be in.
I would like to apologize.
The assignment was to talk about something I love without shame, and that is the LOST finale, and I realize that I court chaos by dusting off Lost finale discourse in the year of our lord 2021.
Time has not been kind to "The End," written by Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, which is airing on ABC May 23, 2010. The Lost finale became shorthand for something that was shoddy, nonsensical, and not worth the wait despite strong reviews and ratings. The best way to end Lost was "The End", and it shouldn't be blamed for the plot, production, and business interests that were involved.
Knowing that Jack is going to a job interview is frightening. Credit: ABC
"The End" is a feature-length TV episode and an event. Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and the rest face off against the Man in Black on the island. They search for a way off the island to save it from him. In the flash-sideways, we learn that the characters from every season meet in the church and move on, after they remember their life on the island.
I did my first full Lost rewatch in a decade last year, and "The End" still made me cry. Even if the people who created Lost didn't know all the details from the beginning, it meant more this time around. It is clear that the series was a weakness. Lost was a network show that was bound to 22 episodes a year with the possibility of cancellation after every season. Every episode had to sustain conflict toward a finale, and every finale had to toe the line between summer's hottest cliffhanger and the potential end of the show forever.
The show is at its weakest in Season 3, which was the season that gave us "Stranger in a Strange Land," John Locke's past growing weed in a cult, and the notorious "there are two islands" reveal. The cracks in character and plot point towards a creative team that hit a wall. There is an alternate reality where Lost was not given a final three-season order and continued to live in network purgatory for four or six or 10 years, with people being put in cages and being tortured.
After that, Lost began a calculated move toward the show that it wanted to be. The 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 Season 5 found our characters cast away in more ways than one. Slowly, imperceptibly, Lindelof and Cuse widened the world of Lost while honing in on its characters, preparing for the finale's big picture perspective.
Maybe the only person who knew where this was going was the one who had no idea. Credit: ABC
I will admit that Season 6 is not great, and a lot of hatred stems from this. A lot of what happens on the island and in the flash-sideways is similar to what happened in Season 3. Remember the Ajira flight? Or the temple? Remember what happened to Sayid? You should not, nor should you. 18 episodes is still a lot of time to kill. I think that the structure of Lost could be used in the 10-episode seasons of today, and that it would be one of the best shows of the 2010s and clearly the series he was destined to make.
The show's grand scope may have worked well in the writers' room, but for weekly viewers it was a lot more difficult to piece together a 10,000 piece puzzle. The "magic box" and the "dharma Initiative" were so fascinating that you can't blame anyone for fixing them. It's easy to miss the mark when you're a long way off course.
The show's final hours are heavy with exposition and answers and can be hard to digest. How else do you explain the number of fans who still think the Island was purgatory? The Island was not a lie. How I Met Your Mother is a notorious finale. Would fans have reacted differently if the mother had been seen sooner, or if earlier episodes had teased her fate, so the show's last moments weren't so traumatic? Absolutely.
The future of TV was created by Lost. We owe it to ourselves, our faith in the full orchestral score, and our willingness to embrace messed up stuff on a network drama. We owe everything we know about what can make or break a great show to the finale. Lost should be a lesson for TV fans and creatives to not fixate too much on the end. Trust writers with vision and foresight that can steer a show toward a smooth landing.
The show is now on the streaming service.
